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by alafaye



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-02-25
Packaged: 2018-03-15 05:32:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3435341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alafaye/pseuds/alafaye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fred was badly cursed during the Final Battle, but now he's home. Harry and George try, but it'll take a little coaxing for Fred to relax.</p>
            </blockquote>





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**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2014 12 Days of Twinmas at hptwinsmut and first posted [there](http://hptwinsmut.livejournal.com/37419.html).

"Easy now," Harry said with his hands held out, waiting.

Fred glared and breathed in sharply through his nose. "I'm fine."

Harry sighed. George shook his head from behind Fred where he was watching. The flat he and Fred shared didn't look anything like it had before the war. Before, it was cluttered with experiments and potions and bits and pieces of...well, everything. There had been hardly any room to walk. Oh, it had been all careful contained--with the experiments and potions, they had to be careful--but it was a mess, nonetheless.

It wasn't the sort of place for someone who had to relearn how to walk could live. Hence the cleaning spree. Harry had done most of it in the last month, once they had gotten the all clear from the Healer, and it was at least walkable now. George had applied for a license to expand the flat with Wizarding Space so there was now a separate room for experiments and another for potions. An unused storage room in the shop housed all the bits and pieces they collected for possible future use in new items.

It felt wrong, though. It didn't feel like a flat they could share; it was too neat and clean and orderly. Their collective moods were making it worse, even though they'd only been there for a few minutes.

Still, Harry knew that Fred's temper was legendary and right now? Of course the atmosphere would be charged. Add to that Harry's worries and frustration and George's own fear of failing both his lover and brother and well...Harry hoped that Christmas being right around the corner might help.

"Mum's work?" Fred asked, trying to direct the conversation away from his halting steps.

Harry smirked. "Mine, actually."

Fred narrowed his eyes and finally reached the sofa where he promptly crashed. "Didn't want the cripple falling over himself, eh? Didn't want to make more work for yourself?"

Harry's hands clenched into fists. George stepped further into the room, smiling tightly. "How about some food? Harry, why don't you call our favorite curry shop?"

Taking the excuse, Harry hurried from the room to the kitchen where Fred and George had installed the first telephone for wizarding use. It would connect to the Muggle network, but most wizards used it among themselves. One of the first businesses to use the new technology was food shops. Diagon Alley was full of them now and Harry and George had tried almost all of them during Fred's recovery, neither of them wanting to cook much.

As he searched for the menu, he overheard the conversation happening in the sitting room.

"...he's trying, you know," George said.

Fred snorted. "Trying? I'm almost crippled, George. You heard what the Healer said, I'll never walk the same again. I'm always going to need one of you around, _just in case_."

"And you think that'll be a problem?" George bit out.

"Of course it will!" Fred yelled. "Who wants to take care of someone like that, eh? For the rest of their lives? You should have just let me go back home. You and Harry could have lived here, on your own, with no bother from me."

"Fred, I swear..." George took a deep breath. "Look, maybe this will be difficult for you to understand, but you're not the only one who was hurt here! No, shut up, listen to me. Yes, you were cursed. And yes, it's been a long six months of recovery. But have you thought about Harry and I? Hmm? Do you think it was easy for us to see you, in a coma in a hospital? To watch you realize that you might never walk again? To know that between him and I, there was no spell or charm or potion, nothing, that would help you? Do you what I felt knowing that Harry had just given up the Elder Wand?

"You may have been the one cursed, Fred, but we've all suffered. I had to comfort Harry when he woke up crying from a nightmare where you had died. He was afraid he was going to loose you, too. The way he lost his parents, Dumbledore, Remus."

There was silence and Harry leaned against the kitchen wall, holding his breath. 

"It's Christmas, Fred. We've had a miracle--you lived despite the odds and now you can walk again. I hadn't even thought about putting up a tree, you know. Or presents. Because we were too busy and you alive? That was the best sort of present I could have hoped for. But I came home last week and there it was, a real tree. And Harry had dug out all the decorations. You want to know why? He said because he wanted to make it special for you. He wanted, he said, for us to have our first Christmas together, properly, because we all were able to celebrate it."

"You're the one that gets excited about Christmas," Fred muttered, but even Harry could hear the fond tone in his words.

George chuckled. "You can't lie to your twin. I know you get as excited as I do."

Fred sighed. "He did that for me?"

"And did you also happen to notice that it isn't quite out of the way? Perfect chance for you to fall."

"Shut it. Just...god damn it. Harry!"

The phone fell with a clatter to the floor and Harry peeked around the door frame, blushing. "Yes?"

Fred, eyes narrowed and arms crossed over his chest, raised an eyebrow. "Get over here."

Harry frowned, but joined his lovers. "I didn't do anything!"

"Eavesdropping!" George sing songed.

Harry stuck his tongue out and Fred pulled him down onto the sofa with him. "I forgot that this is our first proper Christmas together."

Ducking his head, Harry worried his lip. "Last Christmas wasn't too good, I know."

"We missed you," Fred told him. 

"Those few nights, back at the Burrow, before Bill's wedding," George mused aloud. "And not much since then. We still have your present, you know."

Harry snorted. "Don't need any presents."

Fred took a deep breath and looked at George, patting the sofa. "Presents enough, now, eh? All of us, alive and together and...w-whole."

Harry kissed Fred's temple. "Whole."

Fred closed his eyes and leaned his head against Harry's. George waved his wand and all the lights went out in the flat except the ones on the tree and the fireplace. Harry breathed deep and Fred wrapped an arm around Harry's waist. George put his arm around Fred's shoulders and held out his other hand for Harry. When Harry put his hand in George's, he smiled.

"I'm sorry," Fred whispered.

"Apology accepted," George whispered back.

"Always," Harry added.

Fred smiled.


End file.
